


Fire

by Againstme



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-14 23:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16050731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Againstme/pseuds/Againstme
Summary: Aubrey used to love looking into the large stone fireplace of her childhood home.The flames would shine and sway in ways that she found fascinating and exciting and just so so so beautiful. The nights she could convince her parents to light the fireplace quickly became her favourite.Sometimes, Aubrey would sneak downstairs after everyone had gone to bed, and just stare at the empty fireplace, imagining the flames. If Aubrey concentrated hard enough on it, she could swear the embers in the hearth would start burning again.





	Fire

Aubrey used to love looking into the large stone fireplace of her childhood home.

The flames would shine and sway in ways that she found fascinating and exciting and just so so so beautiful. The nights she could convince her parents to light the fireplace quickly became her favourite.

Sometimes, when her parents hadn’t deemed the day special enough to warrant lighting a fire, Aubrey would sneak downstairs after everyone had gone to bed, and just stare at the empty fireplace, imagining the flames. If Aubrey concentrated hard enough on it, she could swear the embers in the hearth would start burning again, if only a bit, creating a soft glow in the otherwise dark living room.

Though Aubrey grew up, and she stopped doing childish things like staring at an empty fireplace in the dead of night, her fascination with fire stayed.

She tried her first fire based magic trick at fifteen. It went perfectly. Sure, the flame was a bit stronger than she expected it to be; and it was weird that the lighter didn’t seem to have gone off properly but she chalked it up to beginner’s luck.

Mostly, she was just happy to get a chance to play with the thing that had always fascinated her.

Aubrey learnt a few more tricks before The Lady Flame was truly born.

But when she was, she dedicated herself to her craft, pouring her heart and soul into learning new tricks, finding new ways to impress and mislead people, getting a gimmick that worked and kept people interested in her performance.

When she finally managed to land a few local shows, The Lady Flame thrived.

The Lady Flame’s shows didn’t pay much, and she made pretty much all her money from tips, but it was enough to convince her that it was the right direction for her to go in her life.

She told her parents about her decision, and they were supportive, of course they were, but they convinced her to at least get her diploma before leaving. Something she reluctantly agreed to. At least it gave her time to polish her performance and make everything neat and perfect before leaving.

Then, the fire happened.

The first thing Aubrey felt when she woke up in the hospital, before pain, before anything else, was guilt. Pure, soul-crushing guilt.

She’d caused the fire somehow. It didn’t make sense, sure her tricks had fire elements, but it wasn’t real. Flash paper and a tiny vial of lighting fluid couldn’t possibly have been enough to set an entire house on fire.

She just knew she’d caused it somehow.

Though the pain from the burns she’d gotten left and she worked through her grief as much as one can really work through the loss of a parent, the guilty feeling never really left or lessened.

So Aubrey buried it and moved on with her life.

She took her show to new places, new towns. Though it took her a while to get a hang of her act again - the flash paper slipped from her fingers the first few times, anxiety getting the best of her - it ultimately stayed the same as before.

Except for the fire extinguisher hidden underneath her table that, while she hadn’t been outright negligent of before, suddenly started feeling much much more important. Aubrey checked one, two, three times before every show to make sure it was actually there; and every so often she’d check it more closely to make sure it was actually functional.

Just in case something went wrong. Just in case.

Aubrey also started to note whenever the fire from her tricks wasn’t quite right. Too strong, too bright, too hot. When she started noticing it, the strange “mistakes” started to pop up everywhere. She tried replacing her equipment, but when that didn’t help, she decided to stop wasting her money and stop paying attention to something that wasn’t detrimental to her performance, and, if anything, made it better.

Then she lit the fireplace in Amnesty Lodge using her bare hands, and despite mainly being focused on Dani and the realisation that magic was real and she could do it, something clicked in the back of her mind.

Something she dutifully ignored.

It probably wouldn’t ever come up anyway.

When it does, Aubrey’s not ready. She leaves for a while.

A few days after almost killing Duck, after Ned goes to the hospital, Aubrey ends up sitting in front of the Lodge’s unlit fireplace in the middle of the night.

She’s alone, everyone having long since gone to sleep for the night, and, though the fireplace here is definitely bigger than the one they used to have at home, Aubrey feels like she’s back there. Before everything went wrong.

Just a little kid imagining a roaring fire where there is none just because of how cool she thinks fire is.

Without realising she’s doing it, small flames flicker and start to grow in the fireplace, before Aubrey backs up in surprise racked with guilt again.

She really should have realised sooner. The signs were all there: the weird interest in fire, her tricks working too well, the fire that started on the second floor somehow.

The flames flicker out as quickly as they came, leaving only a few barely glowing embers.

She should have known. She should have figured it out and learnt to control it on her own and stopped the fire and-

Aubrey takes a deep breath. Thinking like this won’t get her anywhere. She can’t undo the past.

Aubrey takes another breath, trying to calm herself and go back to a more rational line of thinking, but it doesn’t work. Guilt is still eating at her, her throat closing up and tears welling up in her eyes.

Screw it, she’ll be rational about it in the morning.

The embers die out for good, leaving Aubrey in the relative darkness of Amnesty Lodge.

Her voice cracks, barely audible even in the silence surrounding her.

“I’m so sorry mom.”

**Author's Note:**

> Posted first on tumblr @indridcolds. Hope you liked it!


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